Salt

Angelina Jolie seems to be the go to actress for female action stars these days. Now she is taking the roles originated by men.

I have to admit that when I heard about this film's story that I had my doubts. I did not think that Russia was still interested in spying on the USA. But I was pleasantly surprised. The story works really well and is an excellent thriller. There are a couple of twists I predicted early on but it did not stop me from enjoying it. Phillip Noyce once again proves that he is an excellent action director. The sequences are really well made and more importantly exciting. I liked how Noyce is able to keep the story going at a very quick pace. Some action films these days are a little padded out and therefore the pacing slows things down. But here we are always on the run. Kurt Wimmer has certainly done a good job of re-writing the script to make the hero female. I did think a few of the flashbacks were unnecessary but over all the film was quite well written.

Don't get me wrong, I think Angelina Jolie is an excellent actress and does a very good job here. But in some ways she is too obvious a choice for the role. It would have been nice to see an actress in the role that you don't expect to see doing big action films like this. Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor are good in their respective roles but don't have much to do except run after Angelina and watch her on monitors. Liev does get the better material though. The ending does leave it open for a sequel so we may get to see more of Chiwetel then.

I had low expectations for this film so I think I enjoyed it more than I expected. The story has many great twist and Noyce has crafted many great action sequences.